One Wore Blue (22 page)

He turned to her suddenly, his hands planted firmly on his hips. His hair was rakishly disarrayed, and he appeared very much the man he was, older and wiser than many she knew, perhaps even world-weary. He was strikingly appealing, sensual, bold, sexual, hard—very much the master of his world.

“Then marry me,” he said.

To her own dismay, her eyes fell and she started to shiver. She loved Jesse, she wanted to marry him. She wanted to live with him here as lady of Cameron Hall, and she wanted to grow old sipping cool drinks with him upon the porch in the summer, watching their children grow.

She couldn’t speak at first. Then she murmured, “What if there is war?”

“There is no war right now.”

“Lincoln will soon be president,” she said.

“Why the damned hell did you ever have to know anything about politics!” he demanded savagely. “It’s a despicable trait in a woman.”

She cried out in protest, rising upon her knees. “Oh, Jesse! You don’t mean that, you’ve never meant it before—”

“Well, maybe I mean it now,” he muttered. He stared at her again. “Marry me.”

She rose, straightening her skirt. She walked to him and
leaned against his chest and felt the beat of her heart. Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you, there is nothing that I want more in all the world! The words were on the tip of her tongue, aching to be spoken.

“Oh, Jesse!” she murmured miserably. She turned entreating green eyes up to his. “Promise me that you’ll be with me, that you’ll always be with me!”

His lip curved. “Right or wrong. On your side.”

“Oh, Jesse! This
is
your side!”

He smiled a bittersweet smile and lowered his lips to kiss her tenderly, his fingers curving with a tender touch around her skull.

Suddenly, he pulled back, frowning. For a moment she didn’t understand, then she too heard the sound of hoofbeats.

“Jesse, Jesse! Confound it, where the hell are you?”

It was Daniel’s voice, sounding both excited and anxious. Kiernan stepped back quickly, smoothing her hair, her eyes downcast.

Jesse instinctively stepped before her, shielding her, then strode to the breezeway doors of the summer house.

“Daniel, I’m here. What is it?”

Convinced that she was as put-together as it was possible for her to be, Kiernan stepped up to Jesse’s side. Daniel was riding through the trees, as excellent a horseman as his brother. His blue eyes were dive with fire. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he saw Kiernan.

“Kiernan! You’re home and you’re here!” He leaped down from his horse, and before she knew it, she was in his arms and he was swinging her around, then giving her a sound kiss upon her lips. Jesse watched from the doorway, bemused as he always seemed to be when they met, a dignified figure watching the meeting of children.

“Yes, I’m home!” She laughed and hugged him in return. “I told you I was coming home.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that you were here already.”

He suddenly stared from her to Jesse, and then back to her again. He must have noticed that her hair was somewhat disarrayed.

But whatever he thought or whatever he knew, he kept it to himself. Before he could speak again, Jesse was striding toward them both, saying, “Daniel, what is it? What brought you racing down here?”

“Oh, oh my Lord. It’s happened!”

“What’s happened?”

“Secession, Jesse. Secession! South Carolina has just voted herself out of the Union.”

Ten

Word of the vote for secession in South Carolina spread through Virginia like wildfire. The decision had been made on December 20, and by that evening, the bells throughout Charleston were ringing to herald a brand-new era for the state. It was not much of a surprise. Ever since the election of the Republican president—and Lincoln was adamantly against the institution of slavery—it had seemed that little else could be expected to happen.

Other conventions were planned throughout the South. As Christmas Day 1860 arrived, tensions were high, and excitement was rampant.

Jesse and Kiernan were both quiet.

On Christmas Eve, Kiernan came to Cameron Hall’s Christmas party. Guests came from miles and miles around, including Anthony and his family. It was the first time that Kiernan had seen Anthony since her return to Virginia, and when she greeted him, she tried very hard to be warm. Anthony had not changed during the past year. He seemed to believe that she had now sown whatever feminine wild oats she may have had to sow. His eagerness, his tenderness, were apparent in his eyes.

She saw him first in the open breezeway. Christmas Eve was cold that year, but the doors had been thrown open because the many people present at the affair created an astonishing warmth within the house. Flames burned
brightly in every fireplace throughout the stately manor. Cameron Hall had been decked for the occasion with holly boughs and bayberry candles and beribboned wreaths. Mulled wine simmered upon the hearths, and the sweet smell of cinnamon filled the air.

Kiernan had arrived early with her father, and was hugged enthusiastically by Christa and Daniel. Jesse had taken her shoulders and placed a perfunctory kiss upon her cheek, and their eyes had met. There had been little that they could say before others.

They had been able to say little to each other since Daniel had first brought the news of the secession. Daniel had been with them when they returned to Cameron Hall to tell Christa, and Daniel had insisted upon accompanying her home to tell her father the news.

Excitement over the news ran very, very high. The only one subdued about events was Jesse.

“They insist in South Carolina that it will be a peaceful split,” Daniel had informed them.

“There will be no peace,” Jesse said quietly.

“Well, now it is up to the other states to choose sides,” Daniel mused. They all knew it didn’t matter much what the others did—all that mattered was the choice Virginia made.

Kiernan had had no further opportunity to speak with Jesse alone. Others arrived at the Christmas Eve party just after she did.

It was a joyous occasion. Even though speculation and excitement rose with an ever-increasing fervor, it was still Christmas Eve, a warm and poignant occasion. The guests arrived in beautiful apparel, the men in distinguished frock coats and elegant tuxedos, the ladies in every manner of velvet and silk and fur. And despite the cold, bosoms were bared as daringly as fashion would allow. Fiddles and flutes joined the music of the pianoforte, which had been brought into the huge hallway, and reel after reel was played for dancers who knew no exhaustion.

When Anthony and his family arrived, Kiernan was in the breezeway with Christa. Christa, the last of the Camerons, was a beauty with the family blue eyes and raven hair
set against a cream complexion and fine delicate features. She had a will to match that of both her brothers. Christa whispered against Kiernan’s cheek to let her know that Anthony had arrived, then swept by her in her velvet and taffeta skirts to greet the Millers herself. Anthony and his father were there, as well as Patricia and Jacob, his younger sister and brother. Kiernan stayed back, watching the four Camerons converge on the breezeway, welcoming the new arrivals. The Millers had come a long way. They would be guests of the estate and probably stay until the new year.

Anthony was, as ever, perfectly polite. But after he had shaken hands with Jesse and Daniel and kissed Christa on the cheek, his gaze swiftly roamed over the crowd and came to rest upon her.

She felt pinned down by the cast of his eyes, captured in some mockery of circumstance. The tenderness in his gaze was almost unbearable. He moved swiftly through the crowd of dancers and diners and merrymakers to reach her side.

Even as he walked, Kiernan knew that Jesse was watching him, watching her.

Anthony reached her side and touched her shoulders with trembling fingers.

He pulled her close and offered the most proper and still emotional kiss upon her cheek. He was loath to set her free. “Kiernan, I’ve missed you so very much. Are you home now for good? I hope so. Things are happening quickly now. There may be war. You can’t go running around the world anymore. You have to stay home—and marry me. Let me make an announcement this Christmas, Kiernan. Please, let that be your gift to me!”

She stared into the warm brown of his eyes and felt the tension in his arms upon her. “Oh, Anthony!” she told him miserably. “I can’t. I just can’t!”

Disappointment darkened his eyes and he swallowed hard, but he spoke softly and quickly again. “I’ve rushed you again. Forgive me.”

She wanted to scream at him.
He
didn’t need to be forgiven—
she
did. But she couldn’t tell him that she was in
love with another man. Perhaps she should—perhaps that would end it. But she couldn’t put still more pain into that dark gaze of his.

Not even with Jesse watching.

Or maybe
because
Jesse was watching. Maybe Jesse needed to remember that there were other men who could love her—men who did not betray their own kind.

“I’d love to dance, Anthony,” she told him. She looked over his shoulder and gave Jesse a brilliant smile, then moved into Anthony’s arms.

It was Christmas, and it was a party. She danced with Anthony, and Andrew, and Anthony’s young brother, Jacob. She danced with her father, and she danced with Daniel, and she danced with any number of the other guests. Handsome men, young Virginians, planters, military friends of the Camerons, neighbors—dashing, exciting young men. She flirted outrageously.

Jesse danced, too, with his own sister and with Andrew’s pretty sister, Patricia.

Then he danced with Elizabeth Nash, the steel heiress from Richmond. Then he danced with Charity McCarthy, the widow of a senator, still residing in Washington.

She lived very near where Jesse was stationed, Kiernan found herself thinking bitterly.

Jesse danced with Charity again. In the arms of a Virginia militia lieutenant, Kiernan watched Jesse again with the sable-haired, very elegant Charity.

The woman’s head was cast back as she laughed, revealing an ample expanse of her shoulders and breast and the diamond locket she wore to emphasize her natural assets. Jesse’s hand was upon her waist, and his eyes seemed caught within hers. It seemed, too, that nothing in the world mattered to him except for the elegant woman in his arms.

“I am in love.”

“What?”

Startled, Kiernan looked back at the young lieutenant with whom she was dancing. He was a very good-looking boy, with ash-blond curls, warm hazel eyes—and cheeks that barely needed shaving. He smiled sweetly at her. “I’m
in love. Truly, Miss Mackay, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Dare I hope that we might become better acquainted?”

She was probably a year older than he, Kiernan thought. She stared at him blankly, then realized that Jesse was sweeping by again with the widow from Washington. She flashed the boy a smile. “I do cherish my friends, sir. And I’d be delighted to count you among them.”

A few minutes later she was startled by a firm hand upon her arm, and she was swept into Jesse’s arms. His eyes flashed a dangerous, wicked blue, as hot as they had ever been. They stared arrogantly into her own.

“What now, Miss Mackay? Another conquest? Is it not enough that young Mr. Miller must trip over his tongue every time you are near? Would you have another young man panting on the whisper of a promise? Or have you taken love up as sport?”

Her hand went rigid, and she would have slapped him. But his hold upon her was tight, and his words were quick and harsh. “No, no, careful, love! Imagine, what would they all think if you suddenly slapped your host upon the dance floor? Your father would be aghast—I would be forced to tell him the truth about our relationship. Anthony would be horrified and honor-bound to come to your rescue to salvage your honor. He would be forced to challenge me. And in the duel I’d have to try damned hard to stay alive and at the same time manage not to kill the poor young fool. Is that what you want, Kiernan? The two of us—or three or more of us—fighting over you?”

She still wanted to strike him. But more than anything, she wanted to cry. She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “No. No, that’s not what I want.” She looked up at him again, her eyes damp. “What I want is you, Jesse.”